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Maryland State Archives Maryland Suffrage News Collection MSA SC 3286 msa_sc3286_scm7805-0083 Enlarge and print image (1M) |
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Maryland State Archives Maryland Suffrage News Collection MSA SC 3286 msa_sc3286_scm7805-0083 Enlarge and print image (1M) |
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too
MARrLAXDISUFFRAGJ! NEWS
WOMAN'S COWSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO A VOTE
By Mary O'Toole, L. L. M.
"If you would know the moral and political status of a people, demand what place its women occupy."
Miss Mary 0'Tooi.e.
THE Declaration of Independence in stating that all men arc created
equal proves that the keynote of a republic is individuality; that is,
the right of the citizens to freely have and as freely to express his opinion.
In matters of politics and religion this right is especially desirable. If a
republic hopes to survive, it must give its citizens protection and security
in the exercise of the right of self-government through the use of the
ballot.
A suffrage limited to men only is
a usurpation of woman's right to her
political opinion—equivalent to a lim-
itation of her right to a conscience.
Supine submission to such arrogant
assumption is to invite interference in
other matters. Man would next tell
woman how she should save her soul.
Why not? As well say that a family
is a religious unit as that it is a politi-
cal unit.
Man suffrage is, in effect, creating
a privileged class, which presumes to
speak for the women of the country.
From whence have men derived this
right to confine suffrage to their sex?
Certainly not from the Constitution
of the United States, which expressly
declares in its first article that no
order of nobility shall be created.
What, in effect, is a privileged class but an order of nobility. By the
fourth article of the Constitution the United States is required to guaran-
tee a republican form of government, while the fourteenth amendment
defines citizens to be all persons who are bom or naturalized in the
United States and subject to its jurisdiction, and forbids the States to
abridge the privileges and immunities of such citizens.
The masculine gender is conspicuous by its absence from the Consti-
tution, the only place where the word "male" appears being in the four-
teenth amendment—used there to define how representation shall be ap-
portioned in case a State denies the right to vote to any of its male in-
habitants.
Of the States which participated in the framing of the Constitution
we find that Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey and Georgia had no
limitation of sex in their definition of electors. In Rhode Island electors
were "such as are admitted free of the company and society of the col-
ony," while Connecticut specified that they should be "such persons as
arc of maturity in years"; Georgia, "citizens and inhabitants of the
State" ; New Jersey, "all inhabitants of full age." All, as was usual then,
had qualifications as to property. Women voted in New Jersey until 1807,
when the word "male" was placed before "inhabitants."
By what authority did the other nine States which originally adopted
or ratified the Constitution limit the right of suffrage to males or freemen?
In 1874 the United States Supreme Court, in Minor vs. Happersctt (21
Wall. 162), held that the Constitution only forbade the abridgement of
the privileges and immunities which the citizen already enjoyed. (Mrs.
Virginia Minor made application to register as a voter in Missouri. Being
refused permission to do so, she sued the registrar, and the case was car-
ried to the United States Supreme Court.) Under this ruling we are
forced to go back of the Constitution for the source of authority in the
States to limit suffrage to the male sex.
Our Constitution and the rights of the States guarded thereby are
based upon the laws of England; that is, the common law, derived from
immemorial customs and various charters or bills. The first of these,
Magna Charta, was wrested in 1215 from a king whose title to reign was
so defective he had to depend upon the nobility to keep him upon the
Mention til* Maryland Suffraf • N«W|
throne. We find in this charter certain rights secured to women, among
others that a widow should not be compelled to remarry.
In feudal times grants of land were held by the king's gift in return
for military service. All sons inherited before daughters; but, failing
sons, the daughter inherited every title, honor and privilege of the family
as would a son, with the right to depute personal service, a right also
enjoyed by aged or invalid men.
As a consequence, every public office in England not dependent upon
a university education—and but few men were eligible for these—has
been held at some time by a woman, either in person or by proxy. Singu-
larly enough, it was only when personal service was commuted into money
that these customs were altered to the disadvantage of women. Through
matrimony always a woman lost her property, her husband being her
proxy. By degrees this marital proxy assumed increasing |>owers.
In the trading and industrial classes, however, which more nearly
correspond to the American idea, the men were more liberal and the
women far sturdier in the assertion of their rights. Fathers divided
equally between sons and daughters. Mothers, by statute, had the right
to choose a school for their daughters and to apprentice them to a trade.
Women in trades or guilds paid the same brotherhood money and held
privileges on equal footing with the men, the charters of all guilds running
to "the brethern and sistern." In such occupations as haberdashers,
clothworkers, weavers, grocers, clockmakers, parish clerks, etc., are to be
found lists of freemen which contain the names of women. Women were
paid at the same rate as men for the same work.
The civic fathers recognized three classes of freewoinen—spinsters,
widows, and wives who supported themselves. Since privileges depended
upon the inheritance of lands, office or money, anil the privilege of spend-
ing public moneys carried the responsibility of raising it, women were on
the same footing as men. "A freeman, when she is a woman, shall have
no excuse from the duties of watch and ward," although these duties
might be executed by proxy.
When the national legislature was assembled in the seventh century
to enact a new code of laws, the queen, abbesses and many ladies signed
the decrees. Abbesses generally took part in councils. In the reign of
Henry III four women sat in Parliament and ten ladies in that of Edward
III. It was in the latter reign that the Parliament assumed its present
form.
In 1252, while traveling, Henry III left Queen Elinor as keeper of the
Great Seal. She sat in the Aula Regia, the highest judicial power in
Great Britain.
It is most interesting that in Ireland also we find that at the assem-
blages on the Hill of Tara—which no less an authority than James Bryce
calls one of the oldest monuments to civilization in Europe—St. Brigid
and other abbesses took part in the councils, the laws relating to the house-
hold and domestic affairs coming within their special province.
The foundation of England's present Parliament was the council
which took place in the thirteenth century. The object being to raise sup-
plies, freeholders of the counties and burgesses of the towns were in-
structed to meet together and send a representative to the council cf the
king. These representatives, perceiving that the time to seek redress of
grievances was when the king needed money, gradually grew into the law-
making body.
The fundamental cause, however, was the voting of supplies, and this
was the determining factor in its electorate, the privilege of a "chooser"
being associated with the responsibility for payment; in other words, only
taxpayers were voters. Under such a condition no distinction could be
made on account of sex. Women freeholders paid subsidies and women
burgesses [raid "scot and lot" in the towns.
Women who were freehold tenants of manors were summoned as
jurors. When a woman was lord of a manor she held lord's court, re-
ceived the homage, returned her own representative to Parliament, ex-
actly as a man in the same position would, always, of course, providing
Wh«n P«lroni |